Blood Feast: A Fantasy Romance

A Most Personal Enemy

Lio had never feltso vulnerable when stepping out of Orthros before. As the smells and emotions of mortals washed over him, he was not afraid for himself. He feared never making it home to Cassia. One magefire arrow could sentence her to death by Craving.

“I know.” Lyros must have sensed Lio’s emotions and guessed what he was thinking. “Going into battle is entirely different when someone else’s life depends on yours.”

Lio gave a tight nod. “You two understand.”

“And we’ll make sure you get home in one piece,” Mak replied, “even if you are a squishy scrollworm.”

“See here,” Lio said, “I held my own against an army of Gift Collectors last time we were here.”

“I seem to recall you had some help from us.” Heedless of her fine dress, Solia crouched to peer out of their hiding place. They had arrived in one of the shallow gullies sheltered by brush that dotted the hilly landscape.

Rudhira appeared beside them an instant later. He must have made an extra stop at Hesperine speed, for his famous two-hander, Thorn, was now in a scabbard on his back. He tossed Solia her golden gladius and a cloak. She caught the sword and wrapped the cloak around herself to hide her Imperial finery.

“Have you used your blade before your people yet?” Lio asked.

“No,” she grumbled. “Merely wearing it as a symbol. They still don’t know I’m a warrior and a mage—or that I was ditching my duties in Orthros tonight, by the way.”

“Your secrets are safe with the heretics,” he assured her.

“Keep your veils tight,” Rudhira ordered, “but use your magic with caution. The war mages are on constant alert, ready to catch Hesperines. Don’t disregard the benefits of mundane stealth. If a war mage hits you with a revelatory spell and strips your veils, your chances of evading his fireball will be higher if you already have cover.”

“Understood,” Lio said.

Rudhira led them over the rim of the gully. Keeping low, they raced for the stone wall that surrounded the village.

Lio?came Cassia’s voice, as clear as if she stood next to him. Can you hear me?

Mages with fire arrows might attack at any moment, but still he smiled. Of course, my rose.

What precisely is the range of Grace Union? she asked.

Hesperines have yet to find it. You could stand in the Empire and I here in Tenebra, and you wouldn’t know we were on separate continents.

That’s very reassuring.

But she did not feel reassured, judging by how his heart was pounding. Feel how our hearts are still beating in time, even at this distance? That’s how close I am to you right now.

I’m sorry to inflict my racing pulse on you, but that makes me feel better.

Never apologize for how your power has changed me.

I wish I were there to protect you with my magic. What’s the situation?

He scanned the familiar village with all his senses. It was a refuge for Solia’s loyalists, and the former king knew it. The odors of sweat and fear were coming from here. We’re about to enter Mederi Village. It’s well warded, but the spells won’t hold against magefire arrows.

Any sign of the enemy yet?

He turned his attention to the fortress on the horizon and the distant sounds of battle. Bright sparks of flame danced along the dark silhouette of the walls. “Who holds Castra Patria?”

“I do.” Solia sounded smug. “Lord Lucis and the mages were so confident they could reduce the fortress to rubble with their enchanted trebuchets. But their ‘three-day’ siege has lasted more than thirty.”

Rudhira seemed pleased with himself, too. “Once my Charge stepped into the enemy’s camp under veils and disabled the siege engines, the enemy had to settle in for a long, old-fashioned siege. And with us smuggling supplies in for Solia’s forces, we can hold out indefinitely.”

“Looks as if Lucis is launching another assault,” Lyros commented. “He’s trying to distract us while the mages come for the village. But mundane attacks won’t do much against the Hesperine wards we have on the fortress.”

Queen Solia stands her ground, with Hesperine support, Lio reported to Cassia.

They shared a sense of triumph for an instant. Their victories had not been in vain—yet.

Lio leapt the village wall after the others. Rudhira beckoned for Lio to follow him and sent Mak and Lyros with Solia in the other direction.

“We’ll gather everyone in the village square,” Rudhira instructed, “then step them to safety in groups. Pray that no mages interrupt our spells while we’re transporting mortals.”

“So,” Lio said, “this isn’t your first evacuation.”

“Lucis’s forces have been launching surprise attacks on poorly-defended villages. He’s bullying easy targets, the coward. We can’t fortify them all, so we’ve been taking the residents to safety.”

“But Mederi is one we fortified early on.”

“Yes. He’s getting more ambitious. But this strategy troubles me. It makes no sense for a warlord who needs to quash a rebellion as quickly as possible.”

“No,” Lio said with a grim shake of his head, “but it makes perfect sense for someone trying to make war on Hesperines. He knows we’ll defend the innocent. Lucis and the Collector want to draw out the war as long as possible and engage Hesperines in open combat.”

“Why?” Rudhira demanded.

Lio didn’t have time to answer before they entered the first cottage. He braced himself, knowing it might take all his diplomacy to persuade prejudiced Tenebrans that he and Rudhira weren’t here to steal their children and suck their blood dry.

At the sudden appearance of two immortals in her home, the weary young mother by the fire startled and went pale. But that was the extent of her reaction. She listened carefully to their instructions, then got her four little ones out of bed and half carried, half herded them toward the village square.

Lio held the image in his thoughts for Cassia. Hesperines and Tenebran humans working together as allies. Who imagined we would live to see this?

You did, Sir Diplomat. And you inspired me to believe in it, too.

They roused the young mother’s neighbors next. The couple and their sons talked over each other, dashing every which way across the tiny hearth room to throw random belongings into sacks. Rudhira’s calm leadership cut through their chaos, and he soon had them at the door with only what they truly needed.

From the loft above, a girl watched in silence until she asked Lio, “Can we bring our milk goat?”

Lio helped her down and took her out to the small garden to put a lead on the goat. He wished he could use his mind magic on the bleating nanny, but they couldn’t risk drawing the mages’ attention with too many spells. He settled for soothing her through the Blood Union. The girl led the now-quiet animal away.

Between that house and the next, Lio asked, “Did you take any of the Gift Collectors prisoner at Paradum?”

Rudhira paused to help a villager whose pack had spilled. Without hesitation, the First Prince knelt in the mud with Lio to pick up the old man’s belongings at Hesperine speed.

Once the mortal was on his way, Rudhira sighed. “I know you’ve seen battle, but I still regret that you had to witness the…un-Hesperine level of violence that was necessary at Paradum.”

Lio would never forget the sight of Rudhira’s sword slicing through Skleros’s neck before his eyes. “It won’t give me day terrors, if that’s what you’re worried about. He almost took Cassia from me. I’ll sleep better knowing you separated his head from his body. If I must pray for Hespera’s forgiveness later, I will.”

Rudhira rubbed his face and gave a hopeless laugh. “You have never sounded more like your father. There go our efforts to spare you from a life of violence.”

“Diplomats can’t always avoid violence, especially when we’re trying to stop it.”

“I don’t disagree, for neither can healers.”

Quiet weeping drew them to the next lane. A girl of about fourteen struggled to help up an older woman who had fallen. The grandmother grimaced in pain, even as she fought to regain her footing. The lightest touch of Rudhira’s healing magic swept over the elder.

The girl’s breath came in shallow pants. Her panicked mind fought to focus on the woman in her care. Lio shot Rudhira a beseeching glance, and his Ritual father gave a slight nod.

Lio infused his voice with thelemancy. “Everything will be all right.”

As his subtle spell dampened her mind’s fear response, her pulse calmed, and she regained her breath.

Rudhira eased the grandmother to her feet with strength and levitation. “Nothing is broken.”

She didn’t even limp as the girl led her onward toward the village square. The younger woman gave them a hesitant, but grateful smile over her shoulder.

Lio hurried onward after Rudhira to clear the next row of cottages. “I am the last to judge you if you destroyed every Gift Collector at Paradum that night. But I do need to know what befell the one we left for you. She was bound to a wall by Cassia’s vines in one of the inner rooms of the castle.”

“She?” Rudhira repeated. “You encountered a Gift Collector who’s a woman?”

At his consternation, Lio’s hopes sank. “Then you didn’t find her.”

“We searched every nook and cranny of the place and saw no sign of a woman necromancer. Who is she?”

“Miranda,” Lio said. “The Collector’s favorite. Paradum was her keep.”

Rudhira shook his head. “Forgive me, Lio. It appears one Gift Collector escaped on my watch.”

“It’s not your fault.” Lio’s mind reeled. Hespera’s Mercy, he had been such a fool not to tell Rudhira more that night.

Their most personal enemy was in the wind.

“How could she have escaped? I…I broke her mind,” Lio confessed.

Rudhira looked at him sharply. “You destroyed a Gift Collector’s dream wards?”

“I witnessed the Collector’s plan in her thoughts. His endgame.”

Rudhira hastened another group of villagers past, but his gaze searched Lio’s. “What did you see?”

“He has been twisting minds, warping lives, setting off conflicts—all of this, for one reason. A sealed door beneath Solorum Palace. It’s hidden deep within the Changing Queen’s secret passageways.”

“What’s behind it?” Rudhira asked.

“We don’t know. But whatever it is, he needs two things to gain access. One is a Silvicultrix of the royal line.”

“Cassia,” Rudhira said in realization. “That’s why he targeted her.”

The fury Lio still harbored made his magic rise, and he contained it with an effort. “Lucis used Thalia like an animal and bred Cassia so she would have his royal blood and her mother’s magic. All so the Collector could steal Cassia’s power.”

“What does Lucis have to gain by aiding the Collector in his conspiracy?”

“I don’t know. But he will regret it now that Cassia has taken control of her own destiny.”

Rudhira gripped Lio’s shoulders. “As a Hesperine, immune to displacement, she’s of no further use to them. They will not want to take her alive. And they will not forgive you for freeing her from them. The Collector will be out for your blood.”

Fear was Cassia’s oldestenemy. She had battled it her entire mortal existence, each time she had faced Lucis. She’d thought she knew all its tactics and its every guise.

Until now, the first time in her Hesperine life when she must be apart from her Grace.

The walls of the library shrank in on her. Her heart pounded a warning that her immortal body was in mortal danger. There was a physical ache in her veins, as if his distance pulled on her blood.

She swallowed around the parched weight of her tongue. “Please tell me this gets easier.”

“It will,” Aunt Lyta said. “You don’t see me wanting to hit something every time Argyros leaves the room.”

He laughed. “But I fondly remember the violence you committed the first time we were apart after your Gifting.”

The nearby fern pot cracked, and fronds twined around Cassia’s ankle. She tried taking deep breaths, but her body cared nothing for air. It wanted Lio.

Are you all right?she asked. You seem to be holding up much better than I am.

I’ve had more time to develop a tolerance. But I understand precisely how you feel.

Her heart kicked even faster. This is how you felt when you left me in Tenebra and we were apart for half a year?

The way you comforted me upon our reunion was well worth the suffering. Just think of how good it will feel when we’re together again.

If she thought about that in too much detail, her Craving would only make matters worse.

She must focus her thoughts on diplomatic calculations and hope that cold, clear political maneuvers would distract her from her hunger. “I’m ready when you are, Uncle.”

“Allow me to step us.” Uncle Argyros offered his arm.

He must have guessed she hadn’t mastered that yet, given the state of her magic. Cassia beat back her frustration, lest the library turn into a fern forest. “By now I should already be able to step to your library without causing chaos.”

“Ah, but we are not going to my library. Stay close and let me assist with any magical mishaps.”

By the time she had blinked in surprise, House Komnena had slipped away. Cassia found herself and Knight standing in open air next to Uncle Argyros, Aunt Lyta, and Nike. Kadi joined them an instant later.

He had brought Cassia to a rocky precipice, where the wind stripped the snowdrifts away and sent them spinning out over the ravine below. The capital city of Selas was nowhere in sight.

The Queens’ ward felt close enough to touch. Cassia stood speechless, dwarfed and cradled by the Sanctuary ward Queen Alea had cast over the entire border of Orthros. Queen Soteira’s theramancy called to her from within the protection spell. Her Hesperine senses answered, her blood magic flaring toward the ward in a gesture of loyalty to their Queens.

“The ward knows you, the newest Hesperine under its protection,” said Aunt Lyta.

Nike’s aura told Cassia she was impressed. “And your magic is certainly determined to be known.”

“Are we standing against the barrier?” Cassia asked.

Kadi nodded. “Right outside the node where the Queens first anchored it.”

“Uncle Argyros and I are joining you on border patrol tonight?” At last, something Cassia could do.

“It’s the only way we diplomats get to spend any family time with the warriors these days,” Uncle Argyros said lightly, but she sensed the gravity in his aura.

“Alkaios and Nephalea send their regrets,” Kadi told Cassia. “They offered to patrol the border during your Ritual so the rest of us could attend. We’re heading to join them now.”

“Give them my gratitude,” Cassia said.

“Stay safe,” Uncle Argyros fretted to his ancient, powerful Grace and daughters.

“We will,” Aunt Lyta reassured him.

“And our enemies won’t,” Nike promised.

Her sister grinned at her as they stepped away.

Uncle Argyros’s eyes darkened, and his immense thelemancy swept around them like a shadow wrapped in snow and wind. When his magic met the ward, the pressure on Cassia’s arcane senses made her break out in gooseflesh. Knight put his ears back, but otherwise remained calm despite the flood of blood magic at work around them.

“You and Aunt Lyta are joining with the ward?” Cassia guessed.

Uncle Argyros nodded.

Cassia knew other Hesperines could connect with the Queens’ magic to observe the entire border of Orthros, but she had never witnessed it before. “How can I help?”

“If the enemy attacks, try to channel what Lustra magic you can from here. It will be valuable to test what power you can access away from the letting site. I am also curious to see how your magic responds in proximity to the ward.”

Trust Lio’s uncle to turn this into a research opportunity. They were certainly far enough away from the tower for such a test, all the way across the Sea of Komne and in the Umbral Mountains.

“And Cassia…”

“Yes, Uncle?”

“If I tell you to retreat inside the ward, I trust you will do so.” Silvertongue fixed her with his legendary stare.

She had to admit, her mentor could still intimidate her. “I will.”

Cassia flexed her bare fingers, which would have been frostbitten by now if she hadn’t been immortal. All she felt was a pleasing chill on her Hesperine skin. Knight pressed close to her, armored against the cold by his thick fur and hardy liegehound blood. Even though she didn’t need his warmth, she gladly accepted his nearness. Would he ever stop protecting her as if she were human?

She opened and closed her hands again, trying to grasp any Lustra magic that might lay under the mountains. In theory, the magic of nature was everywhere and strongest in wild places. This was certainly wilderness, but what power would she find in barren terrain?

“Lio has taught you the foundational spell casting gestures, I see,” Uncle Argyros commented.

“He explained that mages don’t actually need these motions for the spell to work, but that they help us concentrate, and the right gestures are especially important with affinities that are difficult to control.”

Uncle Argyros nodded. “Physical actions help you anchor your arcane power and focus your Will.”

“He also said each mage must find which gestures work best for them as an individual. I’ve been experimenting to find what’s compatible with my affinity.” She didn’t want to admit it was a work in progress. No amount of hand waving seemed to tame the Lustra.

She felt the faintest stirring of…something, like a vibration under her feet. Surely she would not have the opposite problem now and be unable to draw power when they might need it.

“How likely is an attack?” she asked. “The border patrols are cautionary, surely? All the fighting must be far away in Tenebra.”

There came another flare of his mind magic, and the ward pulsed a response. “Organized warbands of heart hunters have been making surprise attacks directly on the ward.”

Cassia’s chest tightened. She scanned the ravine below with her keen Hesperine eyesight. It was only then that she realized where they were. She hadn’t recognized it from this viewpoint, but she had once fallen to the very bottom of that chasm and been surrounded by possessed heart hunters.

“We’re in Martyr’s Pass,” she said. “You’re saying the Collector has more heart hunters under his control?”

“Yes. Nike and I have detected his presence in their minds, but he proves elusive. He avoids dueling with us and throws his pawns at the Stewards.”

“Surely the worst the heart hunters can do is ambush Hesperines who step outside the barrier. The ward is too powerful for our enemies to penetrate.”

“For all our enemies to date, yes. But we do not fully understand what the Collector is capable of. When he opened that portal inside Orthros during the Solstice Summit, he became the first enemy to violate Hespera’s Sanctuary since the founding. We must not underestimate what sabotage he might attempt upon the ward.”

The thought that Orthros’s enduring defenses might actually be vulnerable made Cassia’s stomach turn. “This isn’t all the Collector has been up to for the past month. Of that I’m certain.”

“This is merely the front where he is detectable,” Uncle Argyros agreed.

“We promised that Orthros would keep the Empire safe from him too. Have our Imperial allies reported any signs that he’s trying to infiltrate their shores?”

Uncle Argyros shook his head. “But as Tendeso said, they are ready to send the Imperial army, should Solia ask.”

“Knowing the Tenebrans, her subjects would see military action by the Empire as a foreign invasion, not a heroic rescue.”

“I fear so. Contact between the hemispheres after millennia of isolation is one volatile spell waiting to explode at the slightest provocation. Fortunately, Tendo is not here in an entirely unofficial capacity.”

“Solia said he only came for a personal visit.”

“He arrived on your Gift Night. Somehow, he received word of the danger you were in. He waited with us until Lio cast his spell light over your tower to signal that you had made it through.”

Cassia wanted to give that prickly vulture another hug. “But he stayed after that?”

“He is still Prince Tendeso of the Sandira Kingdom, even when playing the mercenary. The sister states trust him to negotiate with Orthros to ensure their interests are not threatened by our growing alliance with Tenebra.”

Cassia arched a brow. “Tendo is here as a diplomat?”

“Admittedly, he spends more time knocking about with Mak and Lyros in the gymnasium than drinking coffee in my library, but we are making progress allaying the Empire’s concerns.”

“I knew he had it in him,” Cassia said. “He might have lost his throne, but he still thinks and acts like a king.”

“The Queen Mothers of the Empire see the same in him.”

“They’re still trying to arrange a marriage for him with the Empress’s daughter, aren’t they?”

“The Imperial Court talks of nothing else.”

Those must be the rumors Solia was bristling about. It was a promising sign that she was so upset by them.

If this war would allow her and Tendo a second chance. Tomorrow was not guaranteed for any of Cassia’s mortal loved ones. Not even for Hesperines, in a time of conflict.

Uncle Argyros paused. “Another vote took place in the Firstblood Circle while you were in seclusion.”

Cassia turned to him. “They can’t have reversed their decision on the Departure. Tell me we are not about to withdraw from Tenebra, not now.”

His ancient gaze rested on her. “When Lord Lucis and the Mage Orders declared war on Hesperines, we had to decide how to formally respond. The vote took place during the hours of your Gifting.”

“Surely, after how hard Lio and I have fought for Orthros’s new alliance with Tenebra, the Circle wouldn’t vote for isolation. Not while we weren’t even there to defend the treaty.”

“It was your plight that decided the outcome. All of Orthros kept vigil, waiting to see if you would survive your transformation. Even your political opponents would not allow your sacrifice to be in vain. The vote was nearly unanimous. For the first time in Orthros’s history, we will not withdraw to prevent violence. We will go to war and fight for Tenebra.”

Lio,she cried. Did you hear that?

Yes. His own astonishment reverberated back to her. I’m watching it happen, here and now.

Cassia’s thoughts spun. We’ve always fought for peace. We didn’t want Orthros to abandon Tenebra—but we didn’t want a war, either.

I know.

They had won the vote. But they had lost this round of the Collector’s game. They had handed him the war he wanted, and there was no going back now.

“What have we done?” Cassia breathed.

“What this moment in history calls for,” Uncle Argyros replied. “Sixteen hundred years ago, when Lyta and I halted the Aithourians’ army in this pass so our people could escape Tenebra, I held the unwavering conviction that retreat was the only choice. Here and now, I stand by my vote that the time has come for Hesperines to act. We cannot in good conscience watch this unfold without using our great power to help.”

Cassia knew what it meant for Orthros’s greatest diplomat to say that. “I never imagined you would be in favor of war.”

“I am never in favor of war.”

His emotions cracked through his veils. For the first time, she felt Silvertongue’s fury. He stood so still, but his protective anger seemed to fill the mountain passes where he and his Grace had halted an army to save their people. The force of his aura in the Blood Union made her new senses tremble, although she was not afraid.

“This is not what I wanted for you and Lio.” Their mentor’s voice resonated with mind magic. “After centuries of striving for peace, I wanted my successors to inherit a kinder era.”

“This isn’t what we wanted either. We thought our actions would lead to peace. Not play into the hands of an Old Master.”